


A Bad Day

by schrijverr



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Caretaking, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Jonny d'Ville Gets A Hug, Sickfic, Soft Jonny d'Ville, all the love is stored in the sick Jonny, i can relate to that honestly, jonny cries briefly when it all gets a bit too much, jonny has younger sibling energy, no i do not make the rules, oh and he vomits, so watch out for that if it freaks you out, with loads of comfort mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26621296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrijverr/pseuds/schrijverr
Summary: Jonny wakes up feeling sick, but instead of resting and sleeping it off he tries to pretend nothing is wrong in order not to be seen as vulnerable. When he finally collapses Ashes and Tim are there to take care of him.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville & Ashes O'Reilly & Gunpowder Tim
Comments: 14
Kudos: 134





	A Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find this work on my tumblr, which is @schrijverr as well. I hope you pop in and come scream about the mechs with me! I promise I won't bite ;D

Jonny woke up with a headache and a sore throat. He groaned and rolled onto his side, slapping his nightstand in the dark until his hand had found his gun and he could shoot himself through the head, hoping he would come to feeling a bit better.

When he awoke again, nothing had changed, except for the headache, which had gotten worse.

Groaning again, Jonny allowed himself to mope in his bed for a few more seconds, before he forced himself into an upright position.

The world spun around him and he felt nauseous, but after a few moments of heavy blinking and clamping his mouth shut, he managed to get up and to the shower. On the way there he almost fell over a couple of times and the bright light felt like it stabbed him.

In the end he got through his morning ritual, choosing to take a sitting shower in the dark where he skipped over most the actual cleaning and opted for less belts than normal.

It was pretty unusual for a Mechanism to get a sickness that stuck after a death, but it did happen. Raphaella had once told him something about antibodies running out or something. Jonny didn’t really know, he hadn’t been paying attention.

He also didn’t really care, because that did not help him feel less terrible. He briefly considered climbing back into bed and just sleeping this whole thing off, but he knew someone would go check up on him and the last thing he wanted was for anyone to think of him as weak and, he reasoned with himself, he wasn’t feeling that bad anyway, so why waste a day?

Jonny already regretted his decision by the time he got to the kitchen. He was cold and shaky on his feet and the lights were making his head pulse with pain.

Stumbling around, he was glad no one was there to see him as he got himself some cereal, since his stomach was also still quite upset and he didn’t feel like vomiting. With his cereal in hand he slumped down at the counter and mechanically spooned the breakfast into his mouth.

Halfway through he wanted to give up. The cereal was sitting heavy in his stomach and he had to swallow twice after each bite to make sure it actually stayed down.

He was about to shove the bowl away when Raphaella entered with a big plate of steaming breakfast food in her hands and sat down next to Jonny. She began to chatter excitedly about some sort of experiment she was doing, something about the resistance of octokitten skin and ray guns.

Jonny wasn’t really paying attention. 

Instead he was focusing on not vomiting, since he had returned to his cereal, trying to keep up the facade. But the smell and noise was not helping him at all.

Raphaella was still talking, not minding Jonnys silence at all. He had managed to finish his cereal and was glad that he now had an excuse to leave. He lied: “Very interesting, Raph, I’m sure. But I promised Marius I’d help him reorganize, so I have to go now.”

“Oh, of course. Can you take this with you for me?” Raphaella got a file out of her pocket and explained: “He wanted me to test all our medicine, so he really needs them today for his organization, since you’re already going you can give them to him.”

Internally Jonny cursed, he’d wanted to go and maybe lie down on a couch (doing nothing on purpose was different, so he could lie on the couch and feel miserable), but now Raphaella and Marius would find out something was up if he didn’t go bring him that stupid file.

Wordlessly he accepted the file and got up. His knees almost buckled, but he could catch himself on time on the table, going unnoticed by Raphaella.

He started walking.

It was the most painful thing he had ever done despite the fact that he had died in so many ways. Every step echoed around in his head and the lights pulsated above him making the world spin while the food churned in his stomach.

The med bay came in sight and he could almost cry with relief, since he would be able to sit and relax for just a moment. 

With the last of his power he pushed open the door and threw himself into a waiting chair (he did not know why they had them, but he wasn’t going to argue with this gift) as he held out the file to a startled Marius.

When Marius gave him a questioning look he stated: “From Raph.”

“Ah.” Marius clapped his hands, making Jonny wince, and took the file: “She’s done, great. I’m reorganizing my cabinets by deadliness. Why are you bringing this anyway?”

“Nothing better to do.” Jonny shrugged, sagging further into the chair.

“Oh, great! You can help me then.” Marius smiled and hauled Jonny out of the chair, depositing him on the floor between bottles and handing him one of the papers from the file.

“What?” Jonny asked, disoriented by the sudden movement.

“You’re helping me.” Marius repeated himself, “You just said you had nothing better to do and I can use the extra hands or eyes. Just put the right bottles from each category with each other.”

And with that he turned away, leaving Jonny on the cold floor to struggle through this task. The letters were small and the concentration it took him to read them hurt. The lights were also bright in the med bay and the food was still rebelling in his stomach.

He wanted to leave, he should have stayed in bed and never come out, but it was too late now and if he left, Marius would get mad, maybe even yell and that would hurt too and he’d have to get up in order to leave. Getting up seemed like a lot of work right now.

So he sat and he struggled and he hurt.

With the additional hurdles that came with sickness, it took them until lunch to get all the filing done. The fact that Marius hadn’t noticed something was up with Jonny, only cemented the idea that the other wasn’t really a doctor in Jonnys mind.

By the time they were done, the coldness had seeped into Jonnys bones and he was shivering slightly while a man with a hammer was seemingly on a rampage inside his head, the only saving grace was that his stomach had decided that the food was okay to stay for now. 

That wasn’t about to last, however.

Marius had decided he would make a nice lunch for Jonny as a thank you and had dragged the other with him to the kitchen.

The only thing good about that was that Marius literally dragged him along, so Jonny didn’t have to focus so hard on staying upright and he would be closer to the room with all the couches when this was all over.

Jonny picked at the food in front of him, it was toast with eggs and bacon, Jonnys favourite, but now the smell alone was enough to trigger his gag reflex, however with Marius beside him he just powered through, focusing on swallowing and making sure it stayed swallowed.

When Marius was done, he gave Jonny a look and asked: “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just enjoying.” Jonny grimaced while attempting a smile.

“Sure.” Marius didn’t look like he believed him, but he also didn’t have the time, so he went on, “Enjoy away, I say. I have to go, though, but thanks for the help, really.”

Jonny gave him a thumbs up and waited until the door was closed behind him, before spitting out the bite he had taken and shoving the plate away.

He cradled his head in his hands and tried to do breathing exercises to keep the rest of the food down. He hunched over and screwed his eyes shut, hoping to drown out the pain from the lights with little to no success.

Then he heard heavy footsteps and quickly sat up, trying to pretend nothing was up. Soon after Brian walked into the room and greeted Jonny: “Ah, just the person I was looking for.”

“How so?” Jonny asked, his voice a bit deeper and gravelly than normal.

“I’ve had this melody stuck in my head for days and I think it has potential, but I wanted to run it by someone, before throwing it into the group and you’re the most honest when it comes to this.” Brian told him, “So can I run it past you?”

Jonny wanted to whimper at the thought of listening to music, but instead he said: “Sure, Brian.”

He got up on shaky legs and tried to keep up with Brians long strides to the practice room. There Brian grabbed his banjo and started playing a few notes.

Every note rang through Jonnys skull and he flinched and winced at all of them as he tried to stay on two feet, leaning heavily against the cold wall. He tried to listen, tried to keep up the facade, but it wasn’t enough and after a while Brian asked: “That bad, eh?”

The sad note cut through the haze in Jonnys head and he shook it, which was a bad decision, since he glided to the ground, and said with raspy voice: “No, sorry, just headache.”

Brian could see that it was much more than a headache, with the flush high on his cheeks while he shivered and swallowed heavily. Brian sighed: “Oh, Jonny, you should have said so. Here let me get you to a couch so you can lie down for a moment.”

Jonny tried to wave him away, telling him that he was fine, so Brian played the ace up his sleeve: “Please, it’ll make me feel better after I forced you to listen to me with a headache.”

With his pride in tact through the excuse, Jonny agreed.

Brian did not miss how heavily he leaned on him on the short track to the couch room, as they creatively called the room with all the couches, nor did he miss the slight tremble that was visible in all of Jonnys limbs.

With Brian telling him sternly to stay on the couch, Jonny closed his eyes and sank into the pillows content to doze the rest of the day away in the hope he would feel better when he woke up.

No such peace was in the cards for Jonny, however. Since he was awoken by gunfire not even half an hour later. Each round fired felt like it had lodged itself inside his head, which he grabbed in despair as he curled into himself on the couch.

When the fighting got closer, he peered over the couch to see Ashes seething and shooting at a grinning Tim, who was running away from them while firing as much rounds as he could over his shoulder.

Jonny did not know what Tim had done to earn Ashes wrath, but he picked their side anyway, wishing that whatever Tim had done, he’d done it on literally any other day.

He groaned again and flopped back onto the couch, effectively catching Tims attention, who took one look at him and commented: “You look terrible.”

Immediately feeling the need to not seem vulnerable, Jonny shot up, ignoring the fact that he’d almost blacked out at the action and with a gruff voice he stated: “Do not.” before shooting Tim in the head, nearly dropping his gun with the recoil and the loud bang.

Ashes walked in, curious to see why the shooting had stopped. They gave Tim one look and said: “Ahw, man, I wanted to do that.”

“Serves you right for being annoying.” Jonny groused, not regretting solving the loud noise problem.

He did regret it a bit when Ashes shot him in the head for it, but it’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you’re dead.

Waking up with an even worse headache, Jonny did feel sorry for himself as he tried not to cry or vomit from the pain of the lights and the loud arguing next to him.

He wanted to tell them to shut up, but in order to do that he had to use his throat and his throat hurt right now. He would also need to pretend to be functional again, instead of just lying there pretending to be dead and feeling miserable. So, he just laid there and listened.

“It wasn’t me, I swear.” Tim said.

“Who else could it be, Tim. It’s a gun, of course you stole it.” Ashes sounded annoyed.

“Yeah, a ray gun. I don’t like those, but Raphaella wanted one for her latest experiment, why don’t you suspect her?” Tim argued.

“Because she already borrowed one of my ray guns.” Ashes sounded smug, “And the one that went missing has been on your radar for millennia.”

It wasn’t stopping, their voiced just got louder with every sentence and Jonny wanted to scream, but at this point he wasn’t sure he could do that. 

He coughed and, with his cover as dead person blown, he got up and looked at them, shutting down the argument for exactly three seconds while they looked at him.

“Having fun without me?” he asked, how he had managed to sound like a person, he did not know. He only knew that it had hurt.

Jonny could slap himself over that comment. He wanted to get out of this situation. Ashes and Tim were precisely the two people he did not want to find out he was feeling unwell, but now he was just further inserting himself into the situation.

“Yes, tell Ashes I didn’t steal their ray gun.” Tim demanded.

“Tell Tim he has to give it back.” Ashes returned loudly.

“Just give them the gun back, Tim. It’s not worth it.” he finally told him, neither noticing the rough state of his voice.

He could not see the smug grin Ashes gave Tim through the pulsing of the lights, but he could hear Tims indignant reply, very clearly and loudly: “Why are you taking Ashes’ side? I’m innocent, I don’t even want their stupid ray gun. You don’t get to accuse me like that!”

“We’re pirates, we steal things.” Jonny whispered, giving up on trying to sound normal in favor of hurting less, “If you’re really that innocent, let them search your room.”

Jonny didn’t know if it was the sudden change in volume or the fact that he was not further instigating violence that tipped them off, but both stopped arguing to really look at Jonny and their anger at each other turned into concern.

He was as white as a sheet, shivering and sweating with hooded glazed over eyes as he flinched away from the bright light and coughed slightly.

Carefully Ashes asked: “You okay, Jonny?”

The chuckle Jonny let out, soon turned into a full of coughing fit. While he was hacking up a lung, he was also fighting against his stomach, which wasn’t happy with all the food Jonny had forced into it to keep everyone happy and off his back.

So when he gasped for breath, his stomach took the opportunity to force the food out of his system and he vomited all over himself.

Looking down the whole day came crashing over him, from the miserable beginning to every little thing that had gone wrong, and he started crying, just heaving sobs of despair that hurt his head, but he couldn’t stop.

Ashes and Tim had both frozen in their place when Jonny had vomited and they did not know what to do about the crying. 

After a few moments of hesitation, Tim knelt down next to Jonny and gently put a hand on his shoulder as he asked: “Hey, it’s alright. Is there anything we can do?”

Jonny sagged into the touch and continued crying, before he vomited again and whimpered: “Wanna be done, want this to be over. Not icky anymore.”

With everything that had happened, this sickness had finally taken down Jonnys last defenses and all he craved was comfort, warmth and to be clean, not caring who gave it to him or the fact that they did at all.

Luckily for him, both Ashes and Tim had a strong older sibling instinct. Ashes had developed theirs in the orphanage and Tim in the trenches with the younger soldiers, so when they came face to face with the vulnerable, crying and sick Jonny who was covered in vomit, their first reaction was to take care of him.

Ashes was the strongest of the two, so they swept him up into a bridal-carry and, minding their volume around Jonny, they told Tim: “Open the doors for me.”

Tim nodded and followed after Ashes. When it became clear Ashes wasn’t heading for Jonnys bedroom, he asked: “Where are we going?”

“I have a bath in my room and I am not holding him up in the shower. Besides if it’s gotten to this point, he must’ve woken up feeling terrible, so his bed will smell.” Ashes answered.

“Won’t it be weird to bathe him.” Tim asked, a bit on the fence about Ashes plan.

“Look at him, Tim.” Ashes said as they stopped allowing Tim to take a proper look at Jonny.

He looked miserable. The vomit that was covering him was soaking into his clothes and Ashes was sure he would’ve passed out if every jostle didn’t hurt enough to make him whimper and curl into their chest, shivering slightly.

All in all he was a mess.

“We didn’t notice how sick he was. We caused this. Wouldn’t you want anyone to help you when they found you like this?” Ashes asked him.

Tim looked a bit guilty and said: “You’re right, of course you are, I know that. It just feels weird, it isn’t right that Jonny is like this.”

He had a point. Every since the beginning, Jonny had been strong. He was the first one and he knew Carmilla best, so he was usually bait or taking the blame and after she was gone, he just kept on being their support pillar. So it was really disconcerting to see him as anything, but strong.

“Yeah…” Ashes trailed off and they stood there in silence for a moment, lost in memories.

Then Jonny coughed and Ashes quickly started walking again. They could feel all the tremors that wracked through his small frame and they wanted to get him warm as soon as possible.

Reaching their chambers, Ashes bee-lined for the bathroom where they set Jonny down on the toilet, ordering Tim to keep him upright as they drew him a bath.

Jonny swayed from side to side, never truly seeing Tim, who was holding both his shoulders and gently tried to make contact with him: “Hey, Jonny. Jonny, I need you to look at me. We’re going to need to undress you in order to get you into the bath. Jonny, hey, hey, look at me, look at me, Jonny. We need to undress you, is that okay? Jonny?”

Blinking and frowning, Jonny made a small noise.

Tim asked: “Jonny? Is that a yes? Come on, just a few seconds then you can go back into your head. Just work with me, Jonny.”

They knew Jonny would probably be okay with them getting him out of the clothes, but undressing him might trigger him and they didn’t want that. They had also worked too hard on helping Jonny set boundaries for himself to just ruin that.

So despite the fact that the bath was nearly full, Tim and Ashes, who had just joined him, kept talking to Jonny until he roughly whispered: “Yeah, no clothes, okay.”

With his consent they gently peeled the disgusting clothes off of him and threw them into the corner of the bathroom. It took the both of them to make sure he didn’t fall off the toilet, but soon Jonny was completely undressed and Ashes was able to lower him into the bath.

The bath was warm, not lukewarm, but not hot either. Jonny hadn’t been running a fever just yet, only feeling cold and clammy to the touch, so Ashes had deemed it safe enough and it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world if Jonny died.

Jonny did make a small disgruntled noise, when he was picked up again and groaned at the sudden movement, but that changed into a soft sigh when his body met the warm water and he went nearly boneless in the heat.

Ashes let him soak for a few moments, making sure he didn’t accidentally drown himself.

The creases of discontent smoothed out a bit and the shivering stopped along with the clattering teeth. 

However, he kept his eyes screwed shut and small coughs still escaped him.

They were sure the headache hadn’t disappeared and the steam wasn’t helping in keeping him hydrated to chase away the pain. So they turned to Tim and said: “Grab a towel and a sweater out of my closet. Then go make him some tea with honey if we have that and grab some of his boxers.”

Glad to have something to do, to be useful, Tim didn’t protest to being ordered around and started doing as he was told.

Ashes grabbed a washcloth and gently started to wipe Jonny down, careful to keep it above the waist as they tried to rid him as much as they could of the sticky sickly feeling. When they were done with that, they cupped the back of Jonny head as they lowered him further under, to wet his hair.

Jonny was pliant and still in their hands. He melted into their touch when they started to massage shampoo into the sweaty hair. He swayed, eyes now half open as he stared straight through reality with hazy eyes.

It really was weird to see him so vulnerable, Ashes thought, before lowering him again to rinse out the shampoo. They needed to fix this, get their Jonny back.

At that point Tim returned with his arms full of fabric and a teacup in his hand, which Ashes quickly took from him before he could drop it and put it down on the counter.

“How is he?” Tim asked.

“Less cold, but still.” Ashes replied, “I think he’s feeling better and he’s at least clean, but he still out of it. I don’t know what he caught, but it really hacked into him.”

“So, what’s our next move.” Tim put the clothes down and grabbed the towel.

“I take him out of the bath and put him on the toilet again. You need to wrap him up in the towel immediately, since we don’t want him to get cold. Pat him dry and get him dressed, before we force him to drink something.” Ashes said.

Tim nodded and they set to work. Jonny whined when he was lifted from the bath, but he did not have the strength to struggle.

While Tim was drying Jonny, Ashes looked at the sweater he’d taken. It was a black one with a skeleton design on it. It was a bit dumb, but they liked it because it was soft and warm, so it had been a good choice.

Getting Jonny dressed was another struggle. In the bath he had regained enough cognitive functions to be embarrassed about needing the help and he was trying to fight them off, voicelessly protesting that he could dress himself.

His arguments fell apart on the fact that he needed Tims help to even stay seated, so Ashes just forced him into the clothes while they grumbled: “Yeah, yeah, I know. Me and Tim are the assholes for trying to help you, we should’ve just left you sitting in your own vomit.”

It was not the right thing to say.

Jonny had enough mental capacity to be embarrassed, but not enough to be able to cope with the idea of the source of comfort, which he secretly craved and didn’t want to go away, to leave. And he also wasn’t able to put together that Ashes hadn’t meant that.

His lip wobbled and silent tears started to leak out of his eyes again. Tim quickly reassured him: “Don’t cry, Jonny, please don’t cry. Ashes didn’t mean it, I swear. You’re doing good.”

Tim did not know why he had tagged the last comment on there, but he saw the way Jonnys eyes lit up with hope at the praise, so he said: “Yeah, that’s it. So well, look at you all dressed. Can you be good and drink this tea for me?”

Jonny nodded eagerly, immediately wincing at the action, before allowing Tim to hold the cup to his mouth while he drank carefully.

When he was done, Tim said: “Good job, buddy. Ashes is going to lift you now okay?”

Blinking heavily, Jonny frowned at Tim, before nodding slowly and giving Tim a dazed smile, then Ashes moved to lift him again and the movement caused the frown to return. The swooping motion made his head spin and he made a noise to signal he was about to vomit again.

Luckily Ashes caught on to it and held him above the toilet while he retched and heaved miserably as the tears started back up again.

Once he was done Ashes cradled him close and whispered: “It’s alright, Jonny. It’s over now, you’re done, it’s alright. That must have sucked, I know, but it’s alright, shhh, don’t worry.” they turned to Tim and said: “Take the bin.”

Then they walked out to their bedroom which they’d kept dark to minimize the pain, still rocking Jonny gently, until they could put him down on the bed. They gently set him down and tucked him in under the covers, before taking the bin and setting it down next to the bed as they told Jonny to use it if he had to vomit again.

When they and Tim both started to walk out of the room, wanting to give Jonny privacy to be sick in peace, they were stopped by a whine.

Looking back they saw Jonny pout in distress and when they asked him what was wrong, he croaked: “Leave me?”

“Yes, we’re giving you your peace, don’t worry, Jonny.” Tim said.

“No, no leave me.” Jonny told him fearfully.

“You want us to stay?” Tim asked, giving Ashes a look.

Jonny nodded slightly and flushed as he said: “Please?”

Unable to deny Jonny anything when he looked so young and vulnerable the two agreed and sat down on the edge of the bed. But it seemed that was not what Jonny had wanted from them, because he frowned and wiggled, although he did not dare to say anything.

Ashes caught on to it, however, and asked: “Is there something else we can do for you, Jonny?”

Jonny bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth, before shyly asking: “Hug?”

Now it was Ashes giving Tim a look. Tim shrugged and said: “What is more pirate than ignoring duties and sleeping for a bit. Beside this way you can make sure he actually gets to the bin in time.”

Making a face that said: ‘that’s fair’. Ashes followed Tims example and started to crawl up the bed to give Jonny a hug.

In the end he got sandwiched between them. Ashes near the door and bin and Tim against the wall. Jonny had gone boneless in the hug and had fallen asleep with a content smile on his face as he burrowed into Ashes chest, while Tim spooned him from behind.

They later got found by Brian, who’d been send out to look for them when they hadn’t showed up for dinner. When they explained what had happened, he just took the vomit clothes from the bathroom and told them he would check up on them later and save them some food.

It took Jonny three days of being cuddled and loved before he returned to normal, which made it even more a pain in the ass to take care of him since he was still sick, but they managed and soon Jonny was back to his bastard self.

He did thank Tim and Ashes, though, but it was never brought up again. Not even when he crawled into their beds again after a nightmare, knowing he would be safe there.

**Author's Note:**

> Jonny deserves some love and I have decided he will get it whether he wants to or not
> 
> Also the best part about space sicknesses is that I do not have to worry about shit and just make stuff up
> 
> Kudos and Comments mean the world to me, so thank you so so much for leaving any if you did, it makes my day <3


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